ince the two sweethearts had
found themselves shut up alone in this room. They had arranged
no love-meetings since the day when Therese had gone to the Rue
Saint-Victor to convey to Laurent the idea of murder. Prudence had kept
them apart. Barely had they, at long intervals, ventured on a pressure
of the hand, or a stealthy kiss. After the murder of Camille, they had
restrained their passion, awaiting the nuptial night. This had at last
arrived, and now they remained anxiously face to face, overcome with
sudden discomfort.

They had but to stretch forth their arms to clasp one another in a
passionate embrace, and their arms remained lifeless, as if worn out
with fatigue. The depression they had experienced during the daytime,
now oppressed them more and more. They observed one another with timid
embarrassment, pained to remain so silent and cold. Their burning dreams
ended in a peculiar reality: it sufficed that they should have succeeded
in killing Camille, and have become married, it sufficed that the lips
of Laurent should have grazed the shoulder of Therese, for their lust to
be satisfied to the point of disgust and horror.

In despair, they sought to find within them a little of that passion
which formerly had devoured them. Their frames seemed deprived of
muscles and nerves, and their embarrassment and anxiety increased. They
felt ashamed of remaining so silent and gloomy face to face with one
another. They would have liked to have had the strength to squeeze each
other to death, so as not to pass as idiots in their own eyes.

What! they belonged one to the other, they had killed a man, and played
an atrocious comedy in order to be able to love in peace, and they sat
there, one on either side of a mantelshelf, rigid, exhausted, their
minds disturbed and their frames lifeless! Such a denouement appeared
to them horribly and cruelly ridiculous. It was then that Laurent
endeavoured to speak of love, to conjure up the remembrances of other
days, appealing to his imagination for a revival of his tenderness.

"Therese," he said, "don't you recall our afternoons in this room? Then
I came in by that door, but today I came in by this one. We are free
now. We can make love in peace."

He spoke in a hesitating, spiritless manner, and the young woman,
huddled up on her low chair, continued gazing dreamily at the flame
without listening. Laurent went on:

"Remember how I used to dream of staying a whole night with you? I